Little Things
by Elantina
Summary: Inuyasha has undergone a dramatic transformation. Drabble-series.
1. Part One

_**P**_ a _ **r**_ t _**O**_ n _ **e**_

They called him a lot of things, but they could never bring themselves to use his actual name; it humanized him too much for their comfort. After all, people always craved an excuse to mistreat someone as long as it suited their own twisted needs.

When he had been nothing but an infant, they referred to him as the half-breed. The vermin. The trash _._ Something to be thrown away or drowned before it could mature into a creature no one could love or tolerate. As he got a little bit older, they called him a bastard. A monster. A filthy hanyou. The faces would change, but the response to _him_ never did; people were scared of what they couldn't understand, and he was the anomaly that they failed to wrap their heads around over and over again.

A half-human, half-youkai child. Not one, and definitely not the other. He was an outsider before he had even been born.

Those feelings and memories were magnified the moment he blinked open his eyes and stared at the beautiful woman who knelt down in front of him. He was waiting with baited breath for her to call him one of those wretched names.

Which one would she choose first? Vermin? Half-breed? Monster? He wished she would pick already and get it over with.

Instead, the woman looked like she was close to tears. Her eyes were glassy, her cheeks were pink, and she seemed to be lost in thought as she struggled to figure out what to say to him. When the words that finally pleased her manifested themselves on her tongue, her gentle voice sounded sad and defeated.

"Oh, Inuyasha…" she whispered. "What _happened_ to you?"

Word count: 295

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 **A/N:** Am I back? We shall see ;)


	2. Part Two

_**P**_ a _ **r**_ t _**T**_ w _ **o**_

Inuyasha inhaled sharply. In the pause between heartbeats, he was swept away by the horrible fear churning restlessly in the woman's eyes. _Who is she? And why is she crying?_ he thought with furrowed brows. _What's going on here?_

She didn't move to wipe the tears from her cheeks. Instead, she reached out as if to touch him, but discarded the effort when her hesitation proved too powerful. It was the most damning feature about having such an expressive face – he was able to see _everything_ she was feeling. Remorse, confusion, horror, and guilt warred across her face in rapid succession, and it all happened so quickly that he was almost unable to identify each individual emotion. Without even knowing how he knew, he realized that he hated it when she was in pain and immediately wanted her to stop crying. So, swallowing his reluctance, he reached forward and gently wiped away her tears with his fingers.

The woman stilled under his touch, and he feared for a brief moment that he had offended her; however, the warmth that filled her dark eyes implied that she approved of the nice thing he was trying to do for her.

"Thank you," she said softly, and Inuyasha stopped breathing altogether, entranced by her tender voice.

He wanted to respond to her so badly, but something had robbed him of the use of his tongue; that, and there was a disturbance nearby – one that was quickly approaching them. He tensed immediately and wondered what he could possibly do to protect them both, but the woman seemed unafraid as a sobbing kitsune child emerged from the foliage around them and threw himself into her waiting arms. Inuyasha slowly inched away from the reunited duo and began to wonder if all these strange people did was cry.

"Kagome!" the kitsune wailed, burying his face in the woman's chest. "I'm so glad you're okay! I thought that oni was going to kill you when he took you. I was so scared!"

"I'm fine, Shippo," the woman – _Kagome_ – assured him in a surprisingly steady voice. "I don't have a scratch on me. Inuyasha protected me."

Inuyasha stiffened at the sound of his name. Wouldn't he remember something so important? An oni was kinda hard to forget, especially if he had somehow battled with it.

The next thing he knew, the kitsune – _Shippo_ – was standing in front of him, gawking at him with wide eyes and a hanging jaw. "Kagome?" he said, his voice seeping with panic as he regarded the hanyou with a bewildered expression. "W-why is Inuyasha a child?"

Word count: 433

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 **A/N:** WOW. Editing is so hard after being out of practice for almost a year! Anyway, thank you all for the lovely reviews on the last chapter. I'll try to get the next part up soon! Cheers! :)


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